Fragmenting a Metropolis Sustainable Suburban Communities from Resettlement Ghettoes to Gated Utopias
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OPEN ACCESS http://www.sciforum.net/conference/wsf3 Article Fragmenting a Metropolis Sustainable Suburban Communities from Resettlement Ghettoes to Gated Utopias Wael Salah Fahmi1,* 1 Department of Architecture, University of Helwan, 34, Abdel Hamid Lofti Street, Giza, 12311, Egypt; E-Mail: [email protected] * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: [email protected]; Tel.: +2 02 33370485 ; Fax: + 2- 02- 3335 1630 Received: 23 September 2013 / Accepted: 28 October 2013 / Published: 01 November 2013 Abstract: The paper examines the impact of the Greater Cairo Master Plan and New Towns Policy on urban housing crisis through some case studies focusing especially on New Cairo City, to the east of downtown Cairo. The empirical research attempts to qualitatively examine the complex reasons for the failure of various policies and implementations in meeting housing needs of middle and low-income people. This has resulted in the emergence of nearly empty new towns, and the increasing fortification of the affluent nouveaux riche within exclusive desert condominiums and gated communities, a phenomenon which aggravated social injustice and housing inequality. These communities’ global architectural styles and marketing strategies are linked to neo-liberal economic policies and private entrepreneurial urban governance related to individualised rights of seclusion, privacy and consumption. Influenced by expatriates in the Gulf monarchies, these desert enclaves are located in Greater Cairo's western desert (6th October City: Dream Land, Gardenia and Beverly Hills) and in the eastern suburbs (New Cairo City: Katameya Heights, Golf City, Al Rehab City, Mirage City, Arabella). Surrounded by golf courses, recreational and commercial facilities, these luxurious residential districts tend to be exterritorial with their construction, maintenance and economies, being largely controlled by international property development firms, whilst locally underlining the ever- sharper social disparity between rich and poor. Whilst exclusive lifestyles and security measures are defining features of these desert resort communities, these gated enclaves do not exist in isolation from their geographical and cultural environments, as noted in New Cairo City. 1 Since 2000 New Cairo City was established as a result of merging Greater Cairo Master Plan's eastern new settlements (1, 3 and 5 ), creating a large suburban community. Initially the area was inhabited by 1992 Cairo's earthquake victims officially relocated to public housing units in settlement (3), which were later regarded incompatible with the development of golf gated communities. To a certain extent, New Cairo City encapsulates most of the features and problems of Greater Cairo’s urban situation, in terms of a hybrid mixture of decayed public resettlement housing for the poor and up-market private gated resort communities for wealthy expatriate groups. New Cairo City, regarded as heterotopian spatial layers with diverse fragmented communities and as venue for new claims by global capital investment, ‘juxtaposes in a single real place different spaces and locations that are incompatible’ (Foucault 1997, p.356). The empirical study adopted a qualitative ethnographic analysis of the on-going contestation between resettled urban poor's right to the city, residents of gated communities, real estate and property speculators and official urban policy. A small area survey was administered within New Cairo City, with in-depth interviews recording narratives of both secondary stakeholder agencies (policy makers, urban planners, NGOs activists, real estate agents) and primary stakeholder groups (urban poor households within resettlement housing and affluent residents within gated communities). The study proposed a stakeholder approach to the sustainable development of new suburban communities in the context of real estate investment and urban planning policies,. Such approach would advocate public– private partnership and grass roots co-operation between home owners, relocated urban poor, land developers, housing experts and local authorities, in order to create inclusive and sustainable urban spaces. Keywords: New Cairo City – gated communities- resettlement housing- contested spaces- sustainable urban development 1. Greater Cairo Master Plans – 1980s and 1990s According to Fahmi and Sutton (2008) the continuous urban problems evident in Greater Cairo’s overcrowded conditions, its inefficient housing supply, poor infrastructure and deteriorated environment have contributed to the launching of a Greater Cairo Master Plan in 1981 which was approved by the Egyptian authorities in 1983. The 1983 Master Plan originally planned for 10 New Settlements ostensibly to house 2–3 million people (Sutton & Fahmi 2001). These were organised into ‘‘development corridors’’ to create urban poles to the east and west and around the earlier new towns. In the event only 9 out of the 10 New Settlements were proceeded with and concern was expressed that as they were sited in the ‘‘hostile’’ desert they would probably be unpopular with people. The first phase was launched in 1987–1988 with 10,000 housing units in 6 of the New Settlements. They received a population boost following the 1992 earthquake when some of the resulting homeless families were relocated to the New Settlements. The Plan’s attempt to restructure the existing metropolitan area was promoted through a scheme of ‘Homogeneous Sectors’. This sought to break up 2 the ‘‘mononuclear’’ arrangement of the city by restructuring it into 16 homogeneous sectors. Each sector was to be an autonomous urban unit of 500,000–2,000,000 people and to be relatively self- sufficient in jobs and services. Several new secondary centres were to be created in these homogeneous sectors. Some progress has been made including the rehabilitation of the old core of Cairo in Gamalia-North. Delay was nevertheless noted in the implementation of the concept of homogeneous sectors (HSs) because of financial constraints, weak urban planning and land management processes at a local level, and poor linkages with planning authorities. More significantly, delay was attributed to the lack of coordination between the HSs policy based on a decentralisation strategy and the New Settlement policy directly related to the deconcentration of population activities from the existing Greater Cairo Region (GCR) agglomeration. The years 1991 and 1997 saw some modifications to the 1983 Master Plan. Population forecasts were increased upwards to 16 million for the year 2000 (GOPP/ IAURIF 1991). The Ring Road route was deviated 2 km to the east through the desert for military reasons, with a western arc in this road being introduced on arable land on Giza’s outer fringes towards 6th October City and New Settlements 6a and 6b. The Ring Road, while representing the more successful infrastructural side of the Plans, has served to segregate inner Cairo from expanding outer fringe areas of higher class residences. Such modifications affected the location of some new settlements as well as contributing to the cancellation of the Green Belt project between Cairo and the Eastern New Settlements. This gave way to the emergence of 'New Cairo City' effectively merging New Settlements 1,3,and 5 (Figure1). There was also more concern with the ecological protection of archeological areas in the South and East, as well as with environmental improvements within the Old Medieval City (relocation of polluting establishments from North Gamalia to New Settlement 3) and within Sayeda Zeinab district (removal of slaughterhouses and tanneries). In addition to the contribution of the ring road to transportation communication, the 26th July road axis, introduced on Giza's western outer fringes, has boosted private development and land speculations within 6th October New City including Sheikh Zayed New Town (Western New Settlements 6a and 6b). Whilst the state was forced to re-house thousands of victims of the 1992 Earthquake within Eastern New Cairo City (Sutton & Fahmi 2001) and within Badr New Town (El- Noshokaty 2002), the Ministry of Housing, Utilities and Urban Communities (MHUUC) has recently handed over the management of some of these new towns to private promoters and speculators who constructed villa complexes, enclosed elite compounds, and gated communities (Denis 1997). One of the major factors behind the relative failure of the GCR Master Plan 1983 and its 1991– 1997 modifications made by the General Organisation for Physical Planning (GOPP) and Institut d’Amenagement Urbain et Regional de’Ile de France (IAURIF) stems from the basic inability of the new towns to attract population, with changes in housing finance being part of restructuring the 3 Egyptian economy since 1991 in accordance with the IMF agreement (Sutton & Fahmi 2001, p143). According to Stewart (1996, p. 475), poor basic services and lack of social and educational infrastructure have also discouraged families from settling in new towns. Families preferred to remain in familiar if crowded environments in Greater Cairo rather than relocate to remote desert cities with unattractive monotonous architecture. As new town housing proved to be too expensive for workers, it eventually attracted speculators rather than residents, as in New Cairo City (Fahmi 2008a). The Plan's aims of controlling urban growth and east- west expansion, reducing population concentration in the inner city, protecting arable land to the north and south of Cairo, and upgrading